Steve McIntosh Report Blog

Why do we fight?

by Steve McIntosh,posted Sep 9 2013 1:27AM

The United States has gone to war five times in my lifetime … I’m not counting Grenada … each time without a congressional declaration of war, as defined by our constitution. We fought in Korea and Vietnam to contain communism. We fought in Afghanistan to eliminate the terrorists who had attacked us on 9/11. We fought in Iraq because they attacked Kuwait, and later because we suspected they had weapons of mass destruction that could be used against us.
I’m unclear on exactly what the criteria is for U-S military involvement around the world. We retaliated against Japan after Pearl Harbor, and that was a reasonable response. Under that standard, Afghanistan is understandable. But other times we have not responded to direct attacks on our nation.
Certainly, our military has been used to battle enemies … perceived and actual … and simply to do the “right” thing.
Punishing the Syrian dictator for inhuman behavior … and to show our strength to other bad guys in the Middle East; are those sufficient reasons to fire the missiles?

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Our thought for today is from John F. Kennedy:

“I would rather be accused of breaking precedents than breaking promises.”